


A Lopsided Pile of Love

by Lady_Vibeke



Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [19]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Bad Cooking, Cute Kids, F/M, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Father's Day, Gen, Humor, Idiots in Love, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:46:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24841756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Vibeke/pseuds/Lady_Vibeke
Summary: With hindsight, she should have known better than to entrust herself with such a delicate task; she very much regretted not buying one of those beautiful, fluffy cakes at the market, now. This wasn't going to be remotely as perfect as she had imagined.“Don't worry,” she whispered to the kid, running a hand behind his head. “I'm going to take all responsibility for this shit. You're an awful helper, but I made most of the mess,” she laughed, meeting his huge, puzzled eyes. “You give Daddy your beautiful gift and I'll just...” she looked around with a pang of disappointment, “pretend there was never another option.”She was so caught in her own self-commiseration that she missed the heavy steps approaching.“What the hell happened in here?”Cara jumped. Din stood at the entrance, a large bag thrown over his shoulder. He was staring – horrified, Cara guessed – at the deplorable state of his poor galley.She tried to move in front of the plate hosting the shameful proof of her own culinary ineptitude, but too late.[ Happy Father's Day, Din. ♡ ]
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Cara Dune, Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709416
Comments: 26
Kudos: 163





	A Lopsided Pile of Love

**Author's Note:**

> This was not planned. I was just being a slug on the couch watching random stuff on TV and it just... hit me. Sorry if it's not much, it was literally a folgoration. :D

“Kid, you need to stop that. This place is messy enough without you- Kriff!”

Cara barely had the time to close her eyes before a splash of dark cream hit her face. Sitting on the small counter beside her, the child giggled proudly up at her, whipping the spoon here and there, christening the whole kitchen corner in chocolate.

She glared down at him, her white shirt bearing samples of every single ingredient they had been using for their little project, some of them marking her face, too: white puffs of flour, streaks of buttery mush, and now chocolate spots. The kid himself was in no better condition. Din might as well eat the two of them for Father's Day.

Cara patiently pried the spoon out of the baby's hand and dropped it into the bowl with a dejected sigh. Everything sucked: her cooking abilities sucked, the state of the whole room sucked, and the pancakes she had just finished piling on the plate sucked worse than everything else combined. They were horribly lumpy, a little burnt on the outside and, she feared, mushy and undercooked on the inside. Also, the chocolate cream was too thick to be able to pour it over the pathetic pile of not-so-flat and not-so-rounded failures sitting on the plate, let alone to be used to write _Happy Father's Day_ along the border of the plate.

She wanted to cry from the frustration. She really had done her very best to prepare one single lousy surprise for Din and all she had been able to muster was this sad excuse of a present she could never dare to even show him. If he got as much as a small, accidental taste of this atrocity he might be poisoned to death.

“I'm sorry, kid,” Cara sighed, picking up the baby from the sticky mayhem coating the counter and three quarters of his tiny body. She didn't really pay much attention to how she handled him: between the two of them, they could have both been placed into an oven and easily turned into cakes.

The baby must be sensing her growing frustration, because he threw his short arms around her neck and cooed softly in her ear. He couldn't speak yet but he was very good at conveying his feelings, and Cara couldn't bear to feel the worry in his embrace.

“Hey, it's okay,” she said, sniffing a little as a touched smile pulled at her lips. “This was a stupid idea to begin with. We should have stuck to that drawing you did with... whatever that adorable doodle is.”

She pulled him back and held him out in front of her face, offering him a reassuring grin. The kid's sticky little hands grabbed her cheeks and he giggled again, eyes glittering in amusement. At least he was happy despite this utter disaster. After all he couldn't tell the difference between the perfect tower of pancakes displayed on Cara's holopad and the ridiculous blob of barely distinguishable layers Cara had put together.

At least the kid's drawing was cute, whatever it was he had drawn with that endless swirl of black, gray and green lines.

It had only been by chance that Cara had found out about Father's Day, here on Dantooine: it was celebrated in winter, on Alderaan; she had no idea if it was a thing at all for Mandaloarians, but she had thought it would be a nice idea: while Din was out getting parts for the ship, she and the kid could prepare a surprise for him. With hindsight, she should have known better than to entrust herself with such a delicate task; she very much regretted not buying one of those beautiful, fluffy cakes at the market, now. This wasn't going to be remotely as perfect as she had imagined hours ago.

“Don't worry,” she whispered to the kid, running a hand behind his head. “I'm going to take all responsibility for this shit. You're an awful helper, but I made most of the mess,” she laughed, meeting his huge, puzzled eyes. “You give Daddy your beautiful gift and I'll just...” she looked around with a pang of disappointment, “pretend there was never another option.”

She was so caught in her own self-commiseration that she missed the heavy steps approaching.

“What the hell happened in here?”

Cara jumped. Din stood at the entrance, a large bag thrown over his shoulder. He was staring – horrified, Cara guessed – at the deplorable state of his poor galley.

She tried to move in front of the plate hosting the shameful proof of Cara's culinary ineptitude, but too late.

“What's that?” asked Din, coming forward. He dropped the bag in a corner and walked up to Cara and the kid, and Cara cursed herself for not checking the time sooner. These stupid pancakes, or, more correctly, pancake-wannabes, had absorbed her so much she had forgotten even her own name. All for nothing.

“I'll clean up everything,” she mumbled, still trying to hide the hideous thing. “Please, don't freak out.”

Din wasn't uttering a single sound. It seemed like he wasn't even breathing. He peeked around Cara's frame and, for a moment, didn't move, then pulled back and stilled again. His helmet tipped up toward the kid, then up again to Cara.

“What is that?”

She shut her eyes and groaned, burying her face into the kid's back. This was so humiliating...

“Cara.” She felt Din's gloved fingers curl under her chin and gently force to look up, then he repeated, “What is that?”

His voice didn't sound mad, at least?

“Look, can we pretend you didn't see anything?” she whined. “This one's got a gorgeous present for you,” she said, waving one of the kid's hands in front of Din's visor. “You know,” she added sheepishly when he stared bemusedly, “for Father's Day.”

Din didn't move for long seconds, then his head turned again toward the ugly blob behind Cara.

“You made this?”

She couldn't interpret his tone: it was perfectly neutral, maybe with a slight hint of surprise in it, or maybe she was just imagining it.

“I did most of the damage,” she admitted, “this brat only helped making it worse.”

She booped a finger over the child's nose and he grabbed it with a toothy grin.

Din was still staring. “That is... for me?”

Cara turned back, following the trajectory of his gaze: the eerie bunch of failed pancakes glared back at her in all their sorry misery.

“Should have been. Don't touch that!” she cried when he tried to reach out for it. “It's probably toxic! I was about to throw it away, dammit.”

Din turned to her; she could feel his eyes lock into hers.

“No one has ever cooked anything for me.”

The slight tremor in his voice did things to Cara's heart. She sketched an apologetic smile and gave him a light shrug.

“Happy Father's Day?”

In her arms, the child giggled and waved something in Din's direction. He had his bizarre drawing in his hand, half crumpled for how awkwardly he was holding on to it to offer it to Din. The sheet had somehow managed to end up half caked in batter and chocolate, too.

“That's the other half of your present,” said Cara. “The actually decent one.”

Din took the paper and observed it for a long while, immobile.

“I'm not sure what it's supposed to represent,” said Cara. “But it's better than my... thing.”

“It's us,” he said before she even finished.

Cara blinked. How had he even-

“The colours,” Din explained, as if reading her mind. “I'm all grey, he's all green, you're black and green... it's the three of us.”

Was it laughter tingeing his words with brightness?

“Is it true?” Cara glanced down at the kid with a marvelled smile. “You drew _us?”_

She received a huge grin as a reply. She met Din's gaze and smiled at him, too.

“At least one of us did something right, uh?”

“I don't care how ugly that thing looks or how bad it tastes,” said Din. “I'll eat it.”

“You _can't!”_

“You cooked it for me. I'm eating all of it,” he stated, so firmly she didn't dare to retort.

“Fine. Just don't blame me when I have to rush you to the closest hospital for food poisoning!”

“I'll take the risk.”

Was he smiling, too? She thought she could sense a smile in his voice.

He moved a step forward, holding his arms out for her and the child, but his foot slipped on a batter splotch on the floor, making him lose his balance. Instinctively, Cara grabbed him with one arm, but he was too heavy and she lost her balance, too. She gasped as she felt his weight pull her to the floor. All she could think about as they fell was protecting the baby, so she tried to land on her back while clutching him to her chest one-armed; it turned out to be unnecessary: their fall to the floor happened in slow motion, as gentle as feather floating through the air. The child was giggling madly when they finally touched the ground, Din landing on his back, Cara and the child upon him. She didn't realise Din's arms had folded around her until, laughing, she buried her face in his shoulder and felt his chest shake with laughter, too.

“Could this Father's Day get any worse?” she wondered, tears spilling from her eyes.

Din wrapped an arm more tightly around her waist and cupped his other hand over the baby's head.

He said, “I don't see how it could get any better.”

Cara had no idea how she could see so clearly the love painted over someone's face when she couldn't see his face at all; it was there, though, and she couldn't unsee it, nor could she ignore that half of it was caressing her, too.

Din craned his neck to touch his forehead against the kid's, then, moving a lock of hair from her face, he pulled Cara down and did the same with her.

“Thank you,” he whispered softly. “Both of you.”

Cara grinned sheepishly, letting her eyes flutter closed. She tried not to think about the rush of warmth she felt rising to her cheeks.

It was going to take hours to clean up the room, and herself, and the kid, and now Din, too, but at the moment she really didn't care.

She may have failed her Father's Day present, but there was a happy father laughing beneath her, and a happy son tittering in her arms, and that was all that mattered.

She definitely couldn't see how this could get any better.

Nothing could ever feel better than this lopsided pile of love.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Father's Day to all loving fathers out there! It's not Father's Day in my country but, hey, doesn't mean I shouldn't celebrate!
> 
> Hope you guys liked it even if it's brief and sort of lame. ♡


End file.
